BUS ROUTE FIGHT GOES UNSETTLED

FORT LAUDERDALE -- A meeting called on Wednesday to hammer out an agreement on a popular bus route in the Riverside Park neighborhood only led to intensified debate.

At issue is whether the City Commission should follow a Riverside Park Residents Association plan to install a barricade at Southwest Ninth Street and Riverside Drive.

The group says the bus turns in a triangle on Riverside Drive at that point, making noise and pollution, damaging sidewalks and endangering pedestrians. They say riders can walk five blocks to either Davie Boulevard or Broward Boulevard to catch another bus.

But some Riverside residents said that action would kill the bus route on which they depend.

"We need the bus," said Anthony Brown, who rides the bus to work, to do his laundry and go shopping. "They're saying it's an inconvenience for a small amount of people. It's going to be an inconvenience for a lot of people."

Brown was one of 75 residents who attended the meeting.

Broward County Transit manager Glenn Margoles said that if Southwest Ninth Street were blocked off, the route could no longer function.

At meeting last July, most of the 200 residents in attendance agreed to the barricades and the elimination of the bus route.

Supporters of the barricades say crime and traffic have significantly decreased. Also, the barricades thwarted a state Department of Transportation attempt to divert traffic into the neighborhood.

Bus route proponents presented statistics to rebut those claims and show that the barricades may have contributed to crime.